SL govt. denies relief to majority of IDPs in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 May 2004, 03:13 GMT]
Mr.S.Pathmanathan, the Jaffna District Government Agent, said Monday that recipient families of dry ration relief in Jaffna peninsula would be reduced to 17,541. This accounts for about 27 percent of the total recipient families that benefited under the relief scheme. Between 1996 and January, 2004, about 71,000 families benefited under this relief scheme, Jaffna district secretariat sources said.

Majority of recipient families were internally displaced and those who lost their employment due to restrictions imposed on them by the Sri Lanka government security forces in land and sea, said district secretariat sources.

Those families who get a monthly income of 1,500 Rupees will be qualified for dry ration relief, Mr.Pathmanathan said.

According to the new directive of the government to reduce the number of recipients, about 70 thousand families have now been left in the lurch without a source of income, civic sources said.

Any family that gets a monthly income of more than 1500 rupees will not be given free dry ration, he added.

Meanwhile, Mr.Pathmanathan said about 49 thousand IDP families have returned to their own lands and houses since the signing of the ceasefire agreement. Of this number, about 42 thousand families were given 25,000 Rupees each as resettlement allowance, according to the GA.